Ebook Tech

For years, people have been forecasting the death of the e-reader. Ever since more flashy, multi-function tablets became mainstream – prompted by the launch of Apple’s iPad in 2010 – black-and-white e-readers with their matt e-ink screens have come to be seen as poor relations.
Indeed, earlier this year, Sony was forced to admit defeat in the e-reader market, withdrawing its Librie series of devices from stores in the US, then from Europe and Australia, and finally its home turf, Japan. The company said at the time that the product line was “no longer economically viable”.

However, the e-books industry is a lucrative one. The publishing industry as a whole is valued at about $100 billion, and e-books acount for about $14.5 billion of that, with the number expected to reach over $22 billion by 2017.
While many of these e-books are read via apps on smartphones and tablets, there remains a core group of passionate book lovers which contines to champion e-readers, claiming that e-ink screens are easier to read in sunlight and are less likely to cause eye-strain than the LCD displays commonly used in tablets.
When Japanese e-reader maker Kobo launched its Aura HD in July 2013, for example, the company’s expectations for the device were fairly modest – it predicted that the Aura HD would account for around 5 per cent of its sales. To everyone’s surprise, it ended up accounting for closer to 25 per cent.

Technology Reshaping Teaching

Not so long ago, the back to school season was marked by a dash to Woolworths for exercise books and colouring pencils. Today it’s not just the shop that’s gone; books and pencils are joined by Chromebook laptops and tablet computers as educational essentials.
The children now entering school are fully fledged digital natives. Recent research by Ofcom found that six-year-olds have the same understanding of communications technology as 45-year-olds, and a ‘millennium generation’ of 14- and 15-year-olds are the most tech-savvy in the UK.
Over four in 10 households now have a tablet, meaning that children are becoming computer-literate before they’ve even started primary school - and we’ve all heard about the techno-babies who can handle an iPad before they have learnt how to tie their own shoelaces.
It is unsurprising, therefore, that technology is playing an increasingly central role in the classroom - not just in ICT lessons, where children will start learning to write code from the age of five this year, but in English, Maths and Science lessons as well.
I recently took part in an interactive experiment run by Argos and Intel, which involved sitting through two English lessons - one the old fashioned way without any kind of technology, and the second with all the latest gadgets at my disposal.

The first involved reading a scene from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, listening to the teacher talk through the themes and then writing my own analysis with pen and paper. The second involved watching a series of video clips depicting differing interpretations of the balcony scene from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, using the internet to research the themes, and then typing my own interpretation on a laptop.
While the first lesson required intense and sustained concentration, the second was undeniably more compelling. I’m not sure I learnt any more about Romeo and Juliet than I did about Macbeth, but at no point during the second lesson did I find my mind wandering, which is half the battle teachers fight every day.

Plane Landing in Fog is Now Easy

Technology showing high-resolution, color depictions of runways could allow more airports to remain open when visibility is limited. Shown, a jet lands in fog at London’s Heathrow. eyevine/Zuma Press
Rockwell Collins Inc. COL +0.82% and other cockpit-equipment makers are developing technologies to combat a major source of frustration for airline passengers: flights that are canceled or diverted due to poor visibility at their scheduled destinations.

Using computer-generated color images, and sometimes infrared-enhanced views of runways and their surroundings, Rockwell, Honeywell International Corp. HON +0.32% and other suppliers are seeking to reduce such schedule disruptions and lost revenue for carriers.

The new onboard landing systems have been gaining momentum and seem poised for further regulatory approvals on both sides of the Atlantic. With high-resolution, color depictions of runways and other features, they are designed to allow many more airports that lack the latest ground-based navigation aids to remain open in bad weather.

In the U.S., they would enable low-visibility landings that are now prohibited at scores of mid-size and smaller fields.

Proponents say the result would be increased capacity and improved safety, because pilots would get significantly more detail about terrain or other potential obstacles.

Career Tips

Information technology is one of the most misunderstood areas out there. Most counselors and therapists have no idea what any of the job titles mean, and even career counselors can be surprisingly clueless when it comes to IT careers. It’s a shame because while it may have been true in the 1990s that someone could succeed in IT without trying, that’s not so true now.

Based on the recent experiences of people I work with in therapy, as well as my own brush with IT recruiting, here are a few pointers that will help put you ahead of the competition and keep your career on solid footing:

Be friendly and approachable even if you think the person you are speaking to is an overpaid dope. Yes, it is annoying to get ridiculous requests from someone who clearly has no idea what he or she is talking about. Yes, it’s unfair that the same person has a corner office and a six-figure salary when they don’t do anything all day. Welcome to the realities of working as a professional in a large organization. I’ve been through it too, and I’m not even in IT, so there you go. It’s important to keep in mind that the stereotype of IT professionals is socially clueless men who come in late every day, shower rarely, and make crude jokes about women. Fair? No, but neither is the myth that all women who have babies give up on their careers.
Proactively request professional development opportunities. If an application or platform that you use is undergoing major updates, you need to be kept abreast of those updates. Find dates for training, price it out, and go over it with your supervisor. Emphasize the reality that the company’s security and productivity depend on a solid and current IT infrastructure, and that means investing in regular professional development. If they say no, try your local community college’s continuing education program. Why spend your hard-earned money on classes after work that might benefit your tightwad employer? In the end, if that same employer’s questionable business practices end up putting them out of business, you need to be able to find a job, and you’re not going to do it with last year’s technology.
Constantly network with people. Some of it can be online. Depending on what you do, you might even be able to get some networking in during board-game meet-ups, Dungeons & Dragons games, or even fantasy football. The idea is to have the career equivalent of a “go bag.” Update your résumé whenever you have a new project to add. Join LinkedIn and keep it current. Always have an eye out for what is going on in the marketplace. This will make it easier for you to negotiate raises and promotions, and, if necessary, find another position.
Post your résumé on appropriate websites if you seriously want to get another job. A terrific LinkedIn profile can be effective on its own, but another gold mine for IT is Dice. You can also check out a compilation from The New York Public Library. The key to using any job board is to find a search that works well for you and subscribe to alerts. Posting a résumé is also helpful, preferably with an email address that you set up only for job-search inquiries. If you include a phone number, brace yourself for calls from Aflac and every other random job out there. Dice is better about that than Monster, but they’re still pretty bad.
Make your résumé human-friendly. I know we’re all terrified of applicant tracking systems and how they “weed out” the “undesirable” candidates. If you are preparing for your job search, what you’re really afraid of is that they will filter out qualified candidates and miss you. Anything can happen, but I don’t think this happens as often as people think. Skills are important, and you should highlight them in your résumé. Soft skills like being friendly and organized are also important. It’s also important to be clear on how you used your valuable skills to make a difference in the bottom line. How did you help save time, save money, or save other resources?

Trade of IT for BT

Companies have become customer-obsessed; IT leaders have not so much as developed a crush. A new study says they’d better warm to the occasion or risk losing their juice.

Will CIOs Ever Trade Information Technology for Business Technology?
People, not systems, need to be the CIO’s focus. Fully four fifths of customer service executives are of the opinion that their CIOs and IT departments do not accelerate their departments’ success. Three quarters of sales execs and half of marketing leaders feel the same way. That’s the dismaying conclusion of an international Forrester Research study of more than 14,000 business leaders and 2,000 IT executives who are tech influencers within their companies.
What’s up? Business leaders are customer obsessed; CIOs are not, according to Forrester analysts Sharyn Leaver and Kyle McNabb. Competitive advantage in today’s marketplace lies in “understanding, interacting with, and serving today’s empowered customers,” argue Leaver and McNabb, the study’s authors. “Leading firms like Amazon, dm-drogerie markt, Macy’s,Marriott, and USAA, do so by shifting their budgets, people, and business structure toward customer knowledge, relationships, and actions.”

Business leaders in the study, by and large, worry that their CIOs haven’t gotten the message that the game plan at top companies has shifted from information technology to business technology. Asked to rank the top five business priorities at their companies for the 12 months ahead, they resoundingly ranked “improve the experience of our customers” second behind “grow revenues.”

Frustrated with the situation at the home office, business executives turn to third-party providers for customer-facing technology, doubting the ability of their IT departments to take on the challenge, according to Leaver and McNabb. But it’s a challenge IT execs must accept to remain in the lead conversation. “As CIO,” they pose, “you must demonstrate that your team can play a central role in achieving new competitive advantage or be left simply managing your company’s systems of record.”